Hiker and Writer

Outback Mizer

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Outback is a long-distance hiker and writer who believes distance works on a person if you stay with it long enough. He has walked thousands of miles across hard, beautiful ground, including the Bibbulmun Track in Western Australia, the Pacific Crest Trail, Colorado Trail, Arizona Trail, Tour du Mont Blanc, and Sweden’s Kungsleden. On December 1, 2021, he stepped away from the Southernmost Point in Key West, Florida, and started walking north. What followed was 5,700 miles on the Eastern Continental Trail, a stitched line of trails and back roads crossing sixteen U.S. states and five Canadian provinces—from Florida’s subtropics to the wind-scoured headlands near L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. The walk ran through alligator country and moose territory, days of soaking rain and nights split open by lightning, long stretches alone, wrong turns, and the kind of help that only appears when you’re moving at walking speed. After 287 days on foot, he reached the end on September 13, 2022. That journey is told in Outback on the Eastern Continental Trail. Now he is walking north again. Beginning at Guadalupe Peak in West Texas, he is covering 4,720 miles to Healy, Alaska, following one continuous line through the center of the continent. The route—what he calls the Outback Trail—threads together established trails, back roads, and wild gaps, pushing through prairie winds, high ranges, and a year shaped by winter. The Trek follows this walk as it happens. No rush. No spectacle. Just landscapes at walking speed and the steady, unromantic work of forward motion—one step, then the next.

Outback is a long-distance hiker and writer who believes distance works on a person if you stay with it long enough. He has walked thousands of miles across hard, beautiful ground, including the Bibbulmun Track in Western Australia, the Pacific Crest Trail, Colorado Trail, Arizona Trail, Tour du Mont Blanc, and Sweden’s Kungsleden. On December 1, 2021, he stepped away from the Southernmost Point in Key West, Florida, and started walking north. What followed was 5,700 miles on the Eastern Continental Trail, a stitched line of trails and back roads crossing sixteen U.S. states and five Canadian provinces—from Florida’s subtropics to the wind-scoured headlands near L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. The walk ran through alligator country and moose territory, days of soaking rain and nights split open by lightning, long stretches alone, wrong turns, and the kind of help that only appears when you’re moving at walking speed. After 287 days on foot, he reached the end on September 13, 2022. That journey is told in Outback on the Eastern Continental Trail. Now he is walking north again. Beginning at Guadalupe Peak in West Texas, he is covering 4,720 miles to Healy, Alaska, following one continuous line through the center of the continent. The route—what he calls the Outback Trail—threads together established trails, back roads, and wild gaps, pushing through prairie winds, high ranges, and a year shaped by winter. The Trek follows this walk as it happens. No rush. No spectacle. Just landscapes at walking speed and the steady, unromantic work of forward motion—one step, then the next.

Stories by the Author

The Trek: My Gear Philosophy: Systems, Sufficiency, and the Ordered Habit of the Walker

Outback Mizer discusses how he chooses gear for long distance hiking.

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March 2, 2026

The Trek: My Gear Philosophy: Systems, Sufficiency, and the Ordered Habit of the Walker

Outback Mizer discusses how he chooses gear for long distance hiking.

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